Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

25 Days of Christmas Cross Stitch Freebies

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There are a lot of great old cross stitch patterns on the Internet, and a lot of good free content if you’re willing to dig around for it. 

I’ve had this link to a freebie page from Aurifil (which is a thread maker, apparently) for a long time, but I just clicked on it again recently and realized there was a whole set of little Christmas cross stitch patterns on it. 

They were originally presented as a Christmas in July project, but you can grab the whole set or any of them that you like to stitch up just in time for the holidays. 

There’s a whole array of projects, including: 

  • gingerbread person
  • Christmas dogs and cats
  • stockings
  • make a wish with an ornament and candy cane
  • Christmas hats
  • letters to Santa
  • snowflakes
  • reindeer
  • a traditional Santa and a surfing Santa
  • Christmas trees made out of different shapes (and other Christmas tree projects)
  • mistletoe
  • ornaments
  • Merry Christmas with holly

There’s also a set of blackwork designs that looks like stars or snowflakes you can use to fill in the background on a project or use as an allover design. 

The projects range in size and number of colors involved. The stockings one shown above, for example, uses five colors of thread and measures 46 by 44 stitches if I can count right. 

You can stitch these projects as they are or combine designs to make your own Christmas samplers. Or just stitch a portion, such as a single one of these stockings, to make a Christmas ornament or greeting card. 

You can grab all of these patterns, as well as a few other freebies, at the Aurifil website. Tip: click on the name of the pattern under the picture and it will automatically start a download of a PDF of the pattern. 

[Photo: Aurifill]

 

Have you read?

Designer Spotlight: Stitching Housewives

Stitching Housewives offers a ton of cute, sort of country feeling cross stitch patterns with different themes I don’t quite understand but they’re super cute so let’s get into it. 

One section is called Dapper Doodads, which it looks like are all square. Tiered Tray Tidbits are generally more rectangular, and RoundAbouts are circular. There are also Sassy Strippers, and I don’t know what the difference among all the different kinds is. All of them are colorful, graphic, often with text, and mounted on something cute. A lot of them are seasonal designs.

Just as an example, here’s Charlie Chicken, a big black chicken hauling an even bigger pumpkin in a wagon past a house with sunflowers. This one is labelled as a Tiered Tray Tidbit, but again I don’t really know why. 

This one uses seven colors and is 56 by 42 stitches. It comes out to 4 by 3 inches or 10 by 7.6 cm when stitched on 28 count linen (equivalent to 14 count Aida). It’s shown mounted on a wooden pumpkin, but you could put it in a frame or make it little pillow or whatever you like. 

There are lots of smaller categories with some themed projects, such as “calendar crates,” which are themed for the month but don’t actually have the month on them. There’s a lot of Christmas patterns, and smaller collections of Halloween/fall and spring projects. 

Another section is called “What’s in My Cup,” which features a tall coffee cup with text on it and decorations in and around the cup. For example there’s a happy birthday cup with a cake coming out of the top and surrounded by presents and balloons. The Good Old Days collection includes monthly minis with the month on one piece, a house decorated for the season and another little seasonal design. 

The seasonal series includes literal seasons as well as Halloween and Christmas designs. 

It’s hard to tell you what’s here but if you like the style of this one or combinations of text and fun images, check out all the goodies at Stitching Housewives. 

[Photo: Stitching Housewives]